Chapter 23: THE WAR AGAINST YOURSELF

II. The Laws of Chaos

1 The
"laws" of chaos can be brought to light, though never
understood. Chaotic laws are hardly meaningful, and therefore out of
reason's sphere. Yet they appear to be an obstacle to reason and
to truth. Let us, then, look upon them calmly, that we may look
beyond them, understanding what they are, not what they would
maintain. It is essential it be understood what they are for, because
it is their purpose to make meaningless, and to attack the truth.
Here are the laws that rule the world you made. And yet they govern
nothing, and need not be broken; merely looked upon and gone
beyond.

2 The
first chaotic law is that the truth is different for
everyone. Like all these principles, this one maintains that each is
separate and has a different set of thoughts that set him off from
others. This principle evolves from the belief there is a hierarchy
of illusions; some are more valuable and therefore true. Each one
establishes this for himself, and makes it true by his attack on what
another values. And this is justified because the values differ, and
those who hold them seem to be unlike, and therefore enemies.

3 Think how
this seems to interfere with the first principle of miracles. For
this establishes degrees of truth among illusions, making it seem
that some of them are harder to overcome than others. If it were
realized that they are all the same and equally untrue, it would be
easy, then, to understand that miracles apply to all of them. Errors
of any kind can be corrected because they are untrue. When
brought to truth instead of to each other, they merely disappear. No
part of nothing can be more resistant to the truth than can
another.

4 The
second law of chaos, dear indeed to every worshipper of sin,
is that each one must sin, and therefore deserves attack and
death. This principle, closely related to the first, is the demand
that errors, call for punishment and not correction. For the
destruction of the one who makes the error places him beyond
correction and beyond forgiveness. What he has done is thus
interpreted as an irrevocable sentence upon himself, which God
Himself is powerless to overcome. Sin cannot be remitted, being the
belief the Son of God can make mistakes for which his own destruction
becomes inevitable.

5 Think what
this seems to do to the relationship between the Father and the Son.
Now it appears that They can never be One again. For one must always
be condemned, and by the Other. Now are They different, and enemies.
And Their relationship is one of opposition, just as the separate
aspects of the Son meet only to conflict but not to join. One becomes
weak, the other strong by his defeat. And fear of God and of each
other now appears as sensible, made real by what the Son of God has
done both to himself and his Creator.

6 The
arrogance on which the laws of chaos stand could not be more apparent
than emerges here. Here is a principle that would define what the
Creator of reality must be; what He must think and what He must
believe; and how He must respond, believing it. It is not seen as
even necessary that He be asked about the truth of what has been
established for His belief. His Son can tell Him this, and He has but
the choice whether to take his word for it or be mistaken. This leads
directly to the third preposterous belief that seems to make
chaos eternal. For if God cannot be mistaken, He must accept his
Son's belief in what he is, and hate him for it.

7 See how the
fear of God is reinforced by this third principle. Now it becomes
impossible to turn to Him for help in misery. For now He has become
the "enemy" Who caused it, to Whom appeal is useless. Nor
can salvation lie within the Son, whose every aspect seems to be at
war with Him, and justified in its attack. And now is conflict made
inevitable, beyond the help of God. For now salvation must remain
impossible, because the Savior has become the enemy.

8 There can be
no release and no escape. Atonement thus becomes a myth, and
vengeance, not forgiveness, is the Will of God. From where all this
begins, there is no sight of help that can succeed. Only destruction
can be the outcome. And God Himself seems to be siding with it, to
overcome His Son. Think not the ego will enable you to find escape
from what it wants. That is the function of this course, which does
not value what the ego cherishes.

9 The ego
values only what it takes. This leads to the fourth law of
chaos, which, if the others are accepted, must be true. This seeming
law is the belief you have what you have taken. By this,
another's loss becomes your gain, and thus it fails to recognize
that you can never take away save from yourself. Yet all the other
laws must lead to this. For enemies do not give willingly to one
another, nor would they seek to share the things they value. And what
your enemies would keep from you must be worth having, because they
keep it hidden from your sight.

10 All of the
mechanisms of madness are seen emerging here: the "enemy"
made strong by keeping hidden the valuable inheritance that should be
yours; your justified position and attack for what has been withheld;
and the inevitable loss the enemy must suffer to save yourself. Thus
do the guilty ones protest their "innocence." Were they not
forced into this foul attack by the unscrupulous behaviour of the
enemy, they would respond with only kindness. But in a savage world
the kind cannot survive, so they must take or else be taken from.

11 And now
there is a vague unanswered question, not yet "explained."
What is this precious thing, this priceless pearl, this hidden secret
treasure, to be wrested in righteous wrath from this most treacherous
and cunning enemy? It must be what you want but never found. And now
you "understand" the reason why you found it not. For it
was taken from you by this enemy, and hidden where you would not
think to look. He hid it in his body, making it the cover for his
guilt, the hiding place for what belongs to you. Now must his body be
destroyed and sacrificed, that you may have that which belongs to
you. His treachery demands his death, that you may live. And you
attack only in self-defense.

12 But what
is it you want that needs his death? Can you be sure your murderous
attack is justified unless you know what it is for? And here a
final principle of chaos comes to the "rescue." It
holds there is a substitute for love. This is the magic that will
cure all of your pain; the missing factor in your madness that makes
it "sane." This is the reason why you must attack. Here is
what makes your vengeance justified. Behold, unveiled, the ego's
secret gift, torn from your brother's body, hidden there in
malice and in hatred for the one to whom the gift belongs. He would
deprive you of the secret ingredient that would give meaning to your
life. The substitute for love, born of your enmity to your brother,
must be salvation. It has no substitute, and there is only one. And
all your relationships have but the purpose of seizing it and making
it your own.

13 Never is
your possession made complete. And never will your brother cease his
attack on you for what you stole. Nor will God end His vengeance upon
both, for in His madness He must have this substitute for love, and
kill you both. You who believe you walk in sanity with feet on solid
ground, and through a world where meaning can be found, consider
this: These are the laws on which your "sanity"
appears to rest. These are the principles which make the
ground beneath your feet seem solid. And it is here you look
for meaning. These are the laws you made for your salvation. They
hold in place the substitute for Heaven which you prefer. This is
their purpose; they were made for this. There is no point in asking
what they mean. That is apparent. The means of madness must be
insane. Are you as certain that you realize the goal is madness?

14 No one
wants madness, nor does anyone cling to his madness if he sees that
this is what it is. What protects madness is the belief that it is
true. It is the function of insanity to take the place of truth. It
must be seen as truth to be believed. And if it is the truth, then
must its opposite, which was the truth before, be madness now. Such a
reversal, completely turned around, with madness sanity, illusions
true, attack a kindness, hatred love, and murder benediction, is the
goal the laws of chaos serve. These are the means by which the laws
of God appear to be reversed. Here do the laws of sin appear to hold
love captive, and let sin go free.

15 These do
not seem to be the goals of chaos, for by the great reversal they
appear to be the laws of order. How could it not be so? Chaos is
lawlessness, and has no laws. To be believed, its seeming laws must
be perceived as real. Their goal of madness must be seen as sanity.
And fear, with ashen lips and sightless eyes, blinded and terrible to
look upon, is lifted to the throne of love, its dying conqueror, its
substitute, the savior from salvation. How lovely do the laws of
fear make death appear. Give thanks unto the hero on love's
throne, who saved the Son of God for fear and death!

16 And yet,
how can it be that laws like these can be believed? There is a
strange device that makes it possible. Nor is it unfamiliar; we have
seen how it appears to function many times before. In truth it does
not function, yet in dreams, where only shadows play the major roles,
it seems most powerful. No law of chaos could compel belief but for
the emphasis on form and disregard of content. No one who thinks that
one of these laws is true sees what it says. Some forms it takes seem
to have meaning, and that is all.

17 How can
some forms of murder not mean death? Can an attack in any form be
love? What form of condemnation is a blessing? Who makes his savior
powerless and finds salvation? Let not the form of the attack on him
deceive you. You cannot seek to harm him and be saved. Who can find
safety from attack by turning on himself? How can it matter what the
form this madness takes? It is a judgment that defeats itself,
condemning what it says it wants to save. Be not deceived when
madness takes a form you think is lovely. What is intent on your
destruction is not your friend.

18 You would
maintain, and think it true, that you do not believe these senseless
laws, nor act upon them. And when you look at what they say, they
cannot be believed. Brother, you do believe them. For how
else could you perceive the form they take, with content such as
this? Can any form of this be tenable? Yet you believe them
for the form they take, and do not recognize the content. It
never changes. Can you paint rosy lips upon a skeleton, dress it in
loveliness, pet it and pamper it, and make it live? And can you be
content with an illusion that you are living?

19 There is
no life outside of Heaven. Where God created life, there life must
be. In any state apart from Heaven life is illusion. At best it seems
like life; at worst, like death. Yet both are judgments on what is
not life, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning. Life not in
Heaven is impossible, and what is not in Heaven is not anywhere.
Outside of Heaven, only the conflict of illusion stands; senseless,
impossible and beyond all reason, and yet perceived as an eternal
barrier to Heaven. Illusions are but forms. Their content is never
true.

20 The laws
of chaos govern all illusion. Their forms conflict, making it seem
quite possible to value some above the others. Yet each one rests as
surely on the belief the laws of chaos are the laws of order as do
the others. Each one upholds these laws completely, offering a
certain witness that these laws are true. The seeming gentler forms
of the attack are no less certain in their witnessing, or their
results. Certain it is illusions will bring fear because of the
beliefs that they imply, not for their form. And lack of faith in
love, in any form, attests to chaos as reality.

21 From the
belief in sin, the faith in chaos must follow. It is because it
follows that it seems to be a logical conclusion; a valid step in
ordered thought. The steps to chaos do follow neatly from their
starting point. Each is a different form in the progression of
truth's reversal, leading still deeper into terror and away from
truth. Think not one step is smaller than another, nor that return
from one is easier. The whole descent from Heaven lies in each one.
And where your thinking starts, there must it end.

22 Brother,
take not one step in the descent to hell. For having taken one, you
will not recognize the rest for what they are. And they
will, follow. Attack in any form has placed your foot upon
the twisted stairway that leads from Heaven. Yet any instant it is
possible to have all this undone. How can you know whether you chose
the stairs to Heaven or the way to hell? Quite easily. How do you
feel? Is peace in your awareness? Are you certain which way you go?
And are you sure the goal of Heaven can be reached? If not, you walk
alone. Ask, then, your Friend to join with you, and give you
certainty of where you go.